I Like That From the People Up Top
I've come to a point in my life that's equally sad and satisfying. I have basically seen every musical act live that I care to see. Two exceptions are Busta Rhymes (I have no idea how he never popped up on stage at a concert I was at.) and Lil' Wayne, who charges too damn much for tickets. So, here are some of the greatest shows I've ever been to in roughly chronological order. Check out the first installment and the second.
Concert for 9/11 featuring Beastie Boys, N.E.R.D., Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, others, ca. September, 2001, Hammerstein Ballroom
My cousin cajoled Starco and me into buying (expensive) tickets for this and I'm glad he did. Just a few weeks after 9/11, everyone in the NYC really needed to have a good time and the artists that appeared that night certainly put on quite a show. I wasn't really sure what N.E.R.D. was, but Pharrell and the boys made me a believer. Jon Spencer was great, again, and it was really interesting, again, to see people who'd never really heard of them not know what to make, at all, of the skinny white dude doing an Elvis impersonation while a guitarist and drummer went nuts behind him.
The Beastie Boys, though, were the real reasons we were there. They came out with "Sure Shot" and played a quick and intense 20-minute set. It was one of those rare occasions that the whole crowd really acted like one organism, jumping when they jumped, rapping along. It was a nice little distraction from the reality of that dark and gloomy fall in New York.
Snoop Dogg's Up in Smoke Tour, ca. October, 2001, Hammerstein Ballroom
This show also proved to be a nice distraction from post-9/11 NYC, but for an entirely different reason. Basically, the entire ballroom turned into one giant cypher for the evening with Snoop, Warren G, Bishop Don Juan and whomever else was on stage playing ringleaders. Needless to say, the specifics of the show are a bit blurry. I think later in that tour Snoop's tour bus got pulled over and they found a good bit of contraband on board. Smart cops, we got in this country.
Public Enemy, ca. October 2002, The World in Times Square
I'm pretty sure the venue was called The World. I guess it doesn't exist anymore. It was a cool place, though. It kind of looked like a high-class strip club without the strippers. Lots of different levels and bars and whatnot.
Anyway, I'm bringing this concert up not because of the music--Chuck D announced straight off that Flavor Flav was in jail for DUI or something, so how great could the show actually be? I bring this show up because Chuck D was just about the surliest you could ever imagine him being. At one point he started a whole "Fuck Bush" chant, and that was cool. But then he was like, "All right, who here likes the Yankees?" (The Yanks were in the playoffs at the time, I believe.) There was a good amount of applause at that one. But Chuck shot back, "Fuck the Yankees. Fuck baseball. They're just a bunch of corporate slaves. You all make me sick." Or something like that. I thought, "Really , Chuck D? You're hatin' on baseball? I've never even seen you not wearing a baseball cap." The crowd shared my confusion. Then he played some boring rock songs.
Growing up as a punk rocker, I always thought it would be cool for a performer to be a gigantic jerkface to the audience, but when confronted by it by one of my heroes, it really wasn't that cool. I kind of wanted my money back.
RZA, ca. Spring, 2003, the Roxy, Prague, Czech Republic
That's right. I saw RZA in Prague. I was studying there for a semester and I saw flyers around town that said RZA, Roxy and some Czech stuff in big letters. At first, I thought it was a joke, that it would be some dude impersonating RZA or some Czech folk singer, but I did some research and found out that Bobby Digital was indeed on a tour of Eastern Europe with Masta Killa, I think. So, I immediately bought tickets and prepared for one of the most random shows I would ever go to.
About a week before the show, the Prague Pill, the city's English alt-news weekly, published a little capsule absolutely slamming RZA for charging an exorbitant amount for his tickets (really around $15, much much less than what he'd charge in the States), being a typical blinged-out hip-hop star (I think the writer actually used the word glitterati) and booking the presidential suite at the nicest hotel in town. I had to respond. So, I wrote a letter pointing out that RZA is a true hip-hop egalitarian, he would most likely lose money on his Eastern European jaunt (CDs cost like $30, which translates to about 60 beers. So nobody was gonna go out and cop a RZA CD in Praha after seeing the show.) and that if RZA doesn't deserve the presidential suite, who does? Presidents? I concluded that the only reason the dude, who obviously knew nothing about hip-hop, wrote the capsule was because RZA wouldn't do an interview with him. He wrote back with some more anti-corporate BS and I concluded that this dude was even worse than me when I was 13. He was just a hater. In any case, the letter made the Pill and it caught the attention of the editor of the paper who later took me to a pro basketball game in Prague. I had a nice time with the guy and at the end of the visit he revealed that the writer had indeed gone off on R-Z-A (as he called him) because he wouldn't sit down for an interview.
Anyway, the show was pretty spectacular. Some Wu-affiliate from Amsterdam praised the 9/11 attacks as he opened the concert, so that wasn't cool. But other than that, RZA really ripped it and the Czech crowd was absolutely nuts. I pushed my way almost all the way to the front and I probably screamed more at that show than any other, because I was actually repping with a purpose. I was one of the few people there that actually grew up in the same area as RZA and I had to let him know that the Tri-State area was in the building. At one point, Bobby was like, "Aight, Prague. Let's see how loud you can get. Our crowd in Sofia, Bulgaria has been the livest so far. Let's see if you can top them." I'm pretty sure we did. Eat it, Sofia.
I also went to a B-boy battle while I was in Prague. It was in this huge warehouse on the outskirts of the city and those Czechs and Slovaks really knew how to break. Good times.
Concert for 9/11 featuring Beastie Boys, N.E.R.D., Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, others, ca. September, 2001, Hammerstein Ballroom
My cousin cajoled Starco and me into buying (expensive) tickets for this and I'm glad he did. Just a few weeks after 9/11, everyone in the NYC really needed to have a good time and the artists that appeared that night certainly put on quite a show. I wasn't really sure what N.E.R.D. was, but Pharrell and the boys made me a believer. Jon Spencer was great, again, and it was really interesting, again, to see people who'd never really heard of them not know what to make, at all, of the skinny white dude doing an Elvis impersonation while a guitarist and drummer went nuts behind him.
The Beastie Boys, though, were the real reasons we were there. They came out with "Sure Shot" and played a quick and intense 20-minute set. It was one of those rare occasions that the whole crowd really acted like one organism, jumping when they jumped, rapping along. It was a nice little distraction from the reality of that dark and gloomy fall in New York.
Snoop Dogg's Up in Smoke Tour, ca. October, 2001, Hammerstein Ballroom
This show also proved to be a nice distraction from post-9/11 NYC, but for an entirely different reason. Basically, the entire ballroom turned into one giant cypher for the evening with Snoop, Warren G, Bishop Don Juan and whomever else was on stage playing ringleaders. Needless to say, the specifics of the show are a bit blurry. I think later in that tour Snoop's tour bus got pulled over and they found a good bit of contraband on board. Smart cops, we got in this country.
Public Enemy, ca. October 2002, The World in Times Square
I'm pretty sure the venue was called The World. I guess it doesn't exist anymore. It was a cool place, though. It kind of looked like a high-class strip club without the strippers. Lots of different levels and bars and whatnot.
Anyway, I'm bringing this concert up not because of the music--Chuck D announced straight off that Flavor Flav was in jail for DUI or something, so how great could the show actually be? I bring this show up because Chuck D was just about the surliest you could ever imagine him being. At one point he started a whole "Fuck Bush" chant, and that was cool. But then he was like, "All right, who here likes the Yankees?" (The Yanks were in the playoffs at the time, I believe.) There was a good amount of applause at that one. But Chuck shot back, "Fuck the Yankees. Fuck baseball. They're just a bunch of corporate slaves. You all make me sick." Or something like that. I thought, "Really , Chuck D? You're hatin' on baseball? I've never even seen you not wearing a baseball cap." The crowd shared my confusion. Then he played some boring rock songs.
Growing up as a punk rocker, I always thought it would be cool for a performer to be a gigantic jerkface to the audience, but when confronted by it by one of my heroes, it really wasn't that cool. I kind of wanted my money back.
RZA, ca. Spring, 2003, the Roxy, Prague, Czech Republic
That's right. I saw RZA in Prague. I was studying there for a semester and I saw flyers around town that said RZA, Roxy and some Czech stuff in big letters. At first, I thought it was a joke, that it would be some dude impersonating RZA or some Czech folk singer, but I did some research and found out that Bobby Digital was indeed on a tour of Eastern Europe with Masta Killa, I think. So, I immediately bought tickets and prepared for one of the most random shows I would ever go to.
About a week before the show, the Prague Pill, the city's English alt-news weekly, published a little capsule absolutely slamming RZA for charging an exorbitant amount for his tickets (really around $15, much much less than what he'd charge in the States), being a typical blinged-out hip-hop star (I think the writer actually used the word glitterati) and booking the presidential suite at the nicest hotel in town. I had to respond. So, I wrote a letter pointing out that RZA is a true hip-hop egalitarian, he would most likely lose money on his Eastern European jaunt (CDs cost like $30, which translates to about 60 beers. So nobody was gonna go out and cop a RZA CD in Praha after seeing the show.) and that if RZA doesn't deserve the presidential suite, who does? Presidents? I concluded that the only reason the dude, who obviously knew nothing about hip-hop, wrote the capsule was because RZA wouldn't do an interview with him. He wrote back with some more anti-corporate BS and I concluded that this dude was even worse than me when I was 13. He was just a hater. In any case, the letter made the Pill and it caught the attention of the editor of the paper who later took me to a pro basketball game in Prague. I had a nice time with the guy and at the end of the visit he revealed that the writer had indeed gone off on R-Z-A (as he called him) because he wouldn't sit down for an interview.
Anyway, the show was pretty spectacular. Some Wu-affiliate from Amsterdam praised the 9/11 attacks as he opened the concert, so that wasn't cool. But other than that, RZA really ripped it and the Czech crowd was absolutely nuts. I pushed my way almost all the way to the front and I probably screamed more at that show than any other, because I was actually repping with a purpose. I was one of the few people there that actually grew up in the same area as RZA and I had to let him know that the Tri-State area was in the building. At one point, Bobby was like, "Aight, Prague. Let's see how loud you can get. Our crowd in Sofia, Bulgaria has been the livest so far. Let's see if you can top them." I'm pretty sure we did. Eat it, Sofia.
I also went to a B-boy battle while I was in Prague. It was in this huge warehouse on the outskirts of the city and those Czechs and Slovaks really knew how to break. Good times.
posted by Alonzo @ 1:02 PM
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